Efficiency - Mash and Sparge

Pugs13 · Joined: 03 Jan 2013 Posts: 34 Location: MN

Hey guys I am having issues with my efficiency and was curious to get your thoughts on my process. I hav eno lowered my efficiency in my recipes to 75% because I cannot seem to master the fly sparging technique with the electric brewery we have which is pretty much based off of Kal's except we have 15g HLT, 15g MT and 20g BK.
No matter what I do I cannot seem to get my pre-boil volume with staying above 1.010 when sparging!?! It's driving me crazy! We do 90min. mashing and as much as 60min. sparging with sparge water below 6pH. Like I said, we started out with 85% efficiency and now down to 75% and still cannot pull off the sparge process.
The only thing I can think of at this point is my mash temps. I have seen that most of the recipes and examples on here call for anywhere from 149F-150F, however I make some beers pretty low in ABV like 3.9%-5.5% and it seems if I mash in low like 149F by the time fermentation is done and the beer is ready to drink it seems real watery or less flavorful, so I have been mashing in at 154F-156F. I am pretty sure this is my problem with not getting the most out of my grain but is there a way to get flavorful session beers when mashing in at 148F-149F without them coming out real watery and dry? Thanks for the help!

perogi · Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2013 10:06 pm Post subject:

How fast are you sparging? How long does it take?

Pugs13 · Joined: 03 Jan 2013 Posts: 34 Location: MN

**kal** · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:29 am Post subject:

FYI: Mashing at 150 or 156F will still make the same amount of sugar, the sugar 156F will just not be as fermentable. So when you measure the gravity, you'll get the same thing.

If your mash temp is WAAAY off then you may not convert starch to sugar but that's probably not the issue.

Kal

**kal** · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:30 am Post subject:

BTW,

How are you measuring the specific gravity? Are you accounting for the temperature? SG varies with temp.

In my instructions I say:

"The pH should remain below 6 and gravity above 1.008 (relative to 68F) to avoid excess tannin extraction."

At the temp you're sparging at it probably reads closer to 1.000 or even lower. You need to "translate" this to 68F. There are various brewing calculators available for this. There's one built into my brewing software (Beer Tools Pro).

Kal

Pugs13 · Joined: 03 Jan 2013 Posts: 34 Location: MN

**kal** · Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:08 am Post subject:

Make sure you're using the refractometer correctly. I've seen many times where the issue is that the reading is off because it's not being used right (I don't use one myself so I can't offer any more hints).

Kal

mcl · Joined: 11 Oct 2011 Posts: 155

Pugs13 · Joined: 03 Jan 2013 Posts: 34 Location: MN

Pugs13 · Joined: 03 Jan 2013 Posts: 34 Location: MN

I am going to look further into our grain crush too. Maybe we are not crushing our grain fine enough.

mcl · Joined: 11 Oct 2011 Posts: 155

Double post

mcl · Joined: 11 Oct 2011 Posts: 155

Entering those numbers in BS with my equipment profile. I am getting a mash eff of 79.5% which isn't bad but you can get better.

What size is your crush?
What was your preboil volume and gravity?

I think you should start with mash/lauter efficiency and work your way down to BH efficiency. That way we can analyze where the problem is.